We hate to be the ones to say it, but the end of the summer romance is nigh, dear readers. As August becomes September, a noticeable chill lingers in the air; the cold creeps in slowly, hardening hearts and delivering sang-froid to young and old alike. In preparation, we suggest you arm yourselves with our modest arsenal of literary quotes that can be administered whenever you feel the time is right. Good luck, and let us know in the comments section what quotes have helped you get through a difficult breakup.

 

1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

For the perpetual adolescent:

“I’ve seen men like you in Doris Day films, but I never thought they existed in real life…The men who can’t commit, who can’t say ‘I love you’ even when they want to, who start to cough and sputter and change the subject. But here you are. A living, breathing specimen. Incredible.”

2. Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano

When you’re putting out the fire:

“[Their love] had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.”

3. “Search for Love” by D.H. Lawrence

For the cold-hearted ending:

“Those that go searching for love
only make manifest their own lovelessness,
and the loveless never find love,
only the loving find love,
and they never have to seek for it.”

4. Douglas Yates

When it’s been too tepid for too long:

“People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.”

5. Gertrude by Herman Hesse

When you’re caught in a Gaga-esque bad romance:

“Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children; often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.”

6. Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

When you’re in Key West, musing to a polydactyl cat with a whiskey in one hand:

“If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it.”

7. Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut

For all the times when you said hurtful things:

“I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, ‘Please—a little less love, and a little more common decency.’”

8. “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop

When you need to steel yourself for the inevitable:

“Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.”

9. “Break It Down” by Lydia Davis

When your man’s got a cheatin’ heart:

“Maybe the truth does not matter, but I want to know it if only so that I can come to some conclusions about such questions as: whether he is angry with me or not; if he is, then how angry; whether he still loves me or not; if he does, then how much; whether he loves me or not; how much; how capable he is of deceiving me in the act and after the act in the telling.”

10. What My Lips Have Kissed: Love Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay

For tender-hearted lovers of lyrical poetry:

“Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart / I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, / And I lie disheveled in the grass apart, / A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain.”

11. How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan

When you want to be the man who delivers a lengthy run-on sentence before he leaves:

“…being in your presence for any length of time depresses the hell out of me and I don’t need this shit who needs this shit so I’m like out of here.”

12. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

When you need to channel your inner Marilyn:

“I want to tell you that I love you
I want to tell you that I love you
I want to tell you that I love I love I love
I love but you do not.”

13. Rabbit Redux by John Updike

Get ready to get yelled at while you nurse your drink:

“That’s the trouble with caring about anybody, you begin to feel overprotective. Then you begin to feel crowded.”

14. Cheap Diamonds by Norman Mailer

For old souls with a lot of regrets:

“The old line ‘You deserve someone better than me’ in this case was not just an old line. She deserved someone who would love her and take care of her and he knew he never would.”

15. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

When you’re a Dionysian in an argument with the Apollonian mind:

“The difference between love and logic is that in the eyes of a lover, a toad can be a prince, whereas in the analysis of a logistician, the lover would have to prove that the toad was a prince, an enterprise destined to dull the shine of many a passion.”

16. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

When you need to talk some sense into a rich girl:

“Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can’t even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? … The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don’t wrap him up. They let him keep his head high, free.”

17. The Ragged Way People Fall Out of Love by Elizabeth Cox

Sometimes honesty is the best policy:

“I don’t love you anymore … It comes down to that, I think.”

18. Waiting by Ha Jin

When your man won’t get a divorce:

“We can’t continue to be like this. Who am I? Your fiancée or your concubine?”

19. Angle of Repose by Wallace Earle Stegner

When you’ve violated the Sixth Commandment:

“I think, don’t you, that a girl with any delicacy of feeling couldn’t bring herself to marry a man indirectly responsible for her father’s death. No matter how much she was in love with him.”

20. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

When you need some perspective:

“In her opinion, the parrots were annoying arrogant. You could buy the most beautiful one in town, she observed, but that won’t make it love you. You could feed it, care for it and exclaim over its loveliness, but there was nothing to guarantee that it would stay home with you.

There had to be a lesson in there somewhere.”

21. Eight White Nights by André Aciman

When you’re thinking of cutting off a relationship before it even begins:

“Would I still feel this way on leaving the party tonight? Or would I find cunning ways to latch on to minor defects so they’d start to bother me and allow me to snuff the dream till it tapered off and lost its luster and, with its luster gone, remind me once again, as ever again, that happiness is the one thing that in our lives others cannot bring.”

22. A poem by Otomo no Yakamochi featured in Written on the Sky: Poems from the Japanese by Kenneth Rexroth

When the bed has been cold and empty for too long:

“Better never to have met you
in my dream
than to wake and reach
for hands that are not there.”

23. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

When you’re a swarthy visitor from Charleston in the presence of a spirited lady:

“I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new.  What is broken is broken — and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.

24. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

When you’re having a Lord Henry moment:

“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”

25. How To Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu

When you’ve seen too much, too young:

“You see, at the beginning we weren’t fighters. We weren’t yellers or throwers, even if we eventually came to be. It would take time and much deeper wounds for us to get to that point.”

26. You Think That’s Bad by Jim Shepard

Just when you think you’ve figured someone out, you realize you had no idea how bad it could get:

“She thought she’d put up with however many years of stonewalling for a good reason, and she’d just figured out that as far as Castle Hubby went, she hadn’t even crossed the moat yet.”

27 . Indignation by Philip Roth

At your first year of college, when your world explodes:

“I think you’re a wonder. You’re beautiful. You’re mature. You are, I admit, vastly more experienced than I am. That’s what threw me. I was thrown. Forgive me.”

28. The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

When you’ve lost too much already to keep it up:

“Every minute we were together, I felt like I was wandering in the dark through a strange house, groping for a light switch. And then, whenever I found one and turned it on, the bulb was dead.”

29. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Best written in a letter while hungover, preferably sealed with a kiss:

“None of us suffers as much as we should, or loves as much as we say. Love is the first lie; wisdom the last.”

30. Dimanche and Other Stories by Irene Némirovsky

When détente isn’t possible:

“Love is just a peculiar, fleeting affair that isn’t very important, but in marriage there is always hostility between two different tribes of human beings. There are two opposing forces, who fight each other until one of them wins, and you and I, my poor old Alain, have been knocked out too easily.”

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

And…here’s the clincher…I am watching The Bachelor. This is on par with eating a huge tub of chocolate mousse all in one go, delight, happiness-of-the-mouth and sticky chocolate fluffiness which results in girly guilt and green gilled biliousness. Also, not something you tell your intellectual friends or, well, any human with a heartbeat*.

As I have previously said, TV turns your mind into a small, floppy carrot. So as far as this show goes, after the marathon I’m watching, I believe that I will be communicating in speech bubbles which will contain cartoon like letters like “gnnnnhhhh”, “troz” and the always popular “ppffrrzzll”.

So before my kingdom turns into orange smush, let’s take a stab at opinionated methinks:

The creators of this show should be given an award for the insight they have into the schadenfreude the human race gets from watching such utter humiliation and adulteration, where after they are locked up forever and have Sylvia Plath shock therapy given to them. Or lobotomies. Such power should not be let rampant.

What the hell are these people/contestants thinking? This guy gets to make 15 women fall in love with him, knowing full well that he will obliterate 14-15 hearts…and these physically attractive ladies  do everything in their power to be evil to each other and ever so purrrfect to this man that they know could potentially snap their selves. Yikes!**

That said, wooohoooo**! He has an identical twin which he wields in order to find out if the girls can distinguish which him he is. People, the producers of this show must have creamed themselves when they heard this. Can you think of better tv than this? And, oh yeah, the brother is married and gets to flirt with these prettinesses. So yay for extending said adulteration. How would you think his wife felt when watching this? Did she bask in the extended fame or did she beat him about the head a la Elin Nordegren ?

Oh my soul folks this is fascinating. The twin thing is working! It is brilliant tv. Some actually get it. The women who don’t get it must feel like utter fools. They are either self involved or just idiots.

There are some moments of heartbreaking honesty though. Some of these women are genuinely crushing hard on this guy. Maybe that is why this show is so addictive. The moments of real life is poignant and the bitchiness is freaking legendary.

Episode 3 is starting and I cannot help myself but watch for Deanna aka The Bachelorette***. Which makes me wonder if we adore personalities because we are forcefed by the media. No wonder you make it only if you have a well connected manager. But perhaps I will find out why she is so troz ggghhnnnn….

Ok that’s me. I can no longer think. Have an awesome Sunday.

* Y’all are fellow kingdoms not just mere mortals.

**2 shows into it…the prrffzzll is starting.

***Bless South Africa’s backwardness as all we seem to have is endless reruns.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

But since we are here, let’s river dance on the gravel of broken-hearted-way-back-when.*** Roughly last year this time I started forming what can only be described as a spectacularly bad idea. I was falling, nay hurling, in love with someone who filed me under the same level of attractiveness as say, a small white mushroom. After declaring my fungial lurve to him he kindly said no thank you. And then the blog started. Lookit here (bottom up folks) if you want a quick catch up.

More importantly though, I found the awesome love of God. My commitment to the faith has since waned considerably**** but I’m slowly reclaiming that space in my head.

The point of  this post however, is how our memories, or lack of memories, shape who we are. Rambo, Himself and I had a brief discussion on Saturday about moments in our lives which either changed us or changed the direction of our lives so radically that the concept of who we think we are changed. Is there some unchangeable core of Feylian-ness which defies change? Or am I really the sum of my experiences, or more importantly the experiences I can examine?

Keep in mind that that memories are heavily edited things. We shape our world narratively (thanks PTerry’s – narrative causality) and as we tend to be the ones telling our own life stories we will almost without fail slowly (or not so slowly depending on the level of narrativium or denial in your cellular make up) change the story until we are portrayed as we hope to be.  So are we ultimately who we decide we should be? Or do we eventually become that person?

Maybe our memories do not shape us so much as our thoughts do…but how much of our thoughts consists of stories we made up to understand the world?

1. Word of the day: advent (The Sage:  1. arrival that’s been awaited – especially something momentous). In Anathem Neal Stephenson gives this word (and quite a few more) a whole new meaning.

2. Insight of the day: If you are not as moved as you used to be by a certain thing, it might be because it has become a part of you.

3. State of the pool: Contemplatively sloshing out of the reach of a retarding sun

4. Joys of the day: 1. thinking again, 2. finding joy in long avoided gospel music, 3. knowing to my marrow that I am loved, 4. my leave starts Friday…a week of reading and bliss await.

5. Awesomest lines: Still Anathem from Neal Stephenson. READ IT. It will make you a better human being.

6. Scripture lines: God is God – Stephen Curtis Chapman

And the pain falls like a curtain
On the things I once called certain
And I have to say the words I fear the most
I just don’t know

And the questions without answers
Come and paralyze the dancer
So I stand here on the stage afraid to move
Afraid to fall, oh, but fall I must
On this truth that my life has been formed from the dust

God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God

And the sky begins to thunder
And I’m filled with awe and wonder
‘Til the only burning question that remains
Is who am I

Can I form a single mountain
Take the stars in hand and count them
Can I even take a breath without God giving it to me
He is first and last before all that has been
Beyond all that will pass

Oh, how great are the riches of His wisdom and knowledge
How unsearchable for to Him and through
Him and from Him are all things

So let us worship before the throne
Of the One who is worthy of worship alone

* Including the earphones which squish my ears until they are a warm cherise of exquisite yelping owie. What’s that? Take it off? Pah. Don’t be silly. Soundslut reporting for duty ma’am.

**

*** Disclaimer: I love Him. I don’t want a life where He is not part of every day of my existence in no way am I considering ever going down that road again. This post is about memory shaping personality.

****I never stopped believing in the truth though. God remains all I want and all I’ve ever needed.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

Either I have become more aware of the members of my gender or I am suddenly surrounded by a few drool inducingly hot females. All shining hair, lip gloss wielding, lily white yielding flesh and razor wit. I completely understand why you wand carriers* can barely think around women. Let it be known that I occasionally have these 2 hour bouts of infatuation on extraordinary human beings, male or female**. Himself said that he thinks everyone has these bouts but that they just don’t talk about it. Is this true?

Now, I am no hag and have in my time caused a few moments of lusty discomfort but I’ve always wondered what it is like to be truly beautiful. Do beautiful women have so different a life from the Jane’s of the world? And while we are at it, beautiful men too. CC is freaking gorgeous***. Poet Programmer piningly concurs. So let me rephrase: do beautiful people have so different a life from the rest of us?

I wonder what it is like to look in a mirror and 9.9/10 times think “not too shabby, eh Nige” as opposed to the mental editing that happens with normal folk. Oh don’t pretend you don’t know what I am talking about. The Jane’s of the world all have that brain powered editing suite without which it would be just that little bit harder to walk out the door and face the world which has had beauty ads crammed down its collective throat everyday for years. Lookit this if you are doubtful:

1. Word of the day: rapturous (The Sage: 1. a feeling of great rapture or delight)

2. Insight of the day: My ‘golden oldies’ are almost exclusively 90′s music. This sucks beyond belief as it was just the other day >.< *mutter mutter*

3. State of the pool: Sluggish but quite burbly.

4. Joys of the day: 1. Listening to ‘golden oldies’, 2. drinks with El the Legend, Himself and FdP at the upside down cow later today 3. Listening to D cutely mangle say “plesier” when I thanked him.

5. Awesomest lines: Neal Stephenson’s Anathem. I can’t begin to describe how magnificent this book is. If I ever stumble across the fountain of youth I would offer the first cup to this man on the promise that he will never stop writing.

* I put on my robe and wizard hat from good ol bash.org.

**I believe that you should be a little in love with the people with whom you spend time because otherwise you are wasting your life. Why spend time with people for whom you couldn’t care less?

***Aesthetically speaking folks. I adore Himself who btw is smoking hot…/grin…*sigh pine*, anyway…CC is the kind of godlike pretty which makes him so far out of the Jane league that you wouldn’t even consider a liaison with him. Like, ever. Unless you look like Hot Bridesmaid…pity she has a significant other and CC is in that godforsaken ocean place.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

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©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

I hate moving, this will be move number 3 in less than a year. Luckily I have almost no possessions* other than our clothes and D’s toys. Wait…I think I own a pastry brush. Not sure where it is though.

Oh and cellphone components which could make a tiny /twitching Transformer or 3.75 very brand id confused phones. At least when the apocalypse comes some clever engineer can use it to make a remote controlled toaster or something.

Point is; it is either very sad or very Zen to possess so little. D’s Alphabet Worm is hardcore though…ooh if you mix that with the cellphone components we could be on to something. Children of the Post Apocalyptic generation watch out! We could broadcast the alphabet and it’s assorted colours**, sounds and dinky little tunes for kilometres. Survivors in the (insert new home suburb here) could be the future leaders simply by way of my possessions, a horrible disaster and some clever engineer who may or may not exist at that time.

I’m being quizzed about my sexp**. Been a while and quite interesting even if I feel like that part of me has been asleep like only the Kraken can.

Anyway. Boxes await.

1. Word of the day: kraurosis (yikes) and deluge (good word) oh and while we’re at it: Sooxle***

2. Insight of the day: Sometimes looking for word of the day can lead inexorably towards Eeeeek territory where even frantic mental scrabbling cannot get you away from the mental images generated by an overactive imagination

3. State of the pool: Stirring and yet extremely reluctant

4. Random thought: This entire post is random.

5. Awesomest lines: Quote today. Robert Frost -

“Suddenly, quietly, you realize that – from this moment forth – you will no longer walk through this life alone. Like a new sun this awareness arises within you, freeing you from fear, opening your life. It is the beginning of love, and the end of all that came before.”

6. Scripture line: 1 Corinthians 6:18 (New International Version): ¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

*Books count as movable memory storage or limbs and considering the constant state of flux in numbers I know they can’t really be mine.

**don’t ask – very Rasta worm this

***Figure it out. Not that hard.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.

I still like the ygm format we eventually settled on and will keep on using it. I have a somewhat strange way of writing which is greatly influenced by my speech, the huge amount of time I spend on chat clients as well as PietSous and Boaz who inducted me into the doubtful joy of MMORPG (like WoW) acronyms. Therefore, a brief glossary:

ygm – ‘you’ve got mail‘. Perfect Guy and I used this in order inform one another on GTalk that we’d written those previously mentioned mails. Still just seeing this acronym makes me smile like a demented schoolgirl. No mean feat, that.

ftw – ‘for the win‘. Urban dictionary defines it as follows: “An enthusiastic emphasis to the end of a comment, message, or post. Sometimes genuine, but often sarcastic”.

/”word” – denotes an action. MSN offers custom emoticons* and the keyboard shortcuts for them almost all start with /.

/bounce – a state of being closely resembling ecstasy, before the word was robbed of its true meaning by MDMA. I am mostly so happy that I literally bounce**

*’sentence describing action’* – denotes an action. Blame this one on GTalk which bolds such sentences. We have since adopted it as stage directions. e.g. *collapses into a sobbing melodramatic heap at her twisted verbosity*

btw – ‘by the way’. Textual segue or off stage whisper. Sometimes both.

milf – ‘mom I’d like to do bad things to’

fail – Again thank you Urban dictionary for this definition: “either an interjection used when one disapproves of something, or a verb meaning approximately the same thing as the slang form of suck”. Also see epic fail.

sigh. pine. – Another state of being. Sometimes used seriously/truly but mostly it is froth.

*, **,*** – Footnotes. Until I find a way of doing superscript, yonder stars will have to do the job. Blame my love of this literary laziness on the most amazing/brilliant author of all time, David Foster Wallace.

That said, welcome to my new abode.

Feylian

*the only good thing about it btw. It fails. Constantly.

**an alarming sight seeing as I turn 30 very, very soon and am hardly elfin.

©2012 YGM. All Rights Reserved.